ILOG Rules for .NET User Guides > ILOG Rule Team Server for SharePoint > Managing Your RuleDocs

Managing Your RuleDocs

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Managing RuleDocs means accessing Rule Team Server to save the RuleDocs that you edit. This is facilitated by the collaborative features of Rule Team Server.

It is also possible to work on your RuleDocs without being connected to Rule Team Server; this is described in the section Work Offline.

To help you organize your rules, decision tables and ruleflows, RuleDocs generated from ILOG Rule Studio for .NET are placed in document libraries and respect the following conventions:

Note
See Rule Properties for best practices on what to call the rule name and package.

Open and Save a RuleDoc

The procedure for opening and saving RuleDocs depends on whether you use the Rule Team Server workspace or ILOG Rule Solutions for Office to edit your rules.

Use Rule Team Server to Open RuleDocs

To open and save a RuleDoc if you are using Rule Team Server to edit your rules:

  1. Locate the RuleDoc in the rule document library and check the file out (see Check Out and Check In).
  2. Select the RuleDoc by clicking the option button beside its name in the rule document library.
    3. The RuleDoc Browser will display the rules or decision tables contained in the RuleDoc you have selected.
  3. Select the rule or decision table you want to edit in the RuleDoc Browser.
    Note
    The RuleDoc Browser displays groups of 10 rules or decision tables at one time. If your RuleDoc contains more than 10 you can click on the numbers at the bottom of the RuleDoc Browser to access other pages.
    4. This displays the rule or decision table in the Rule Editor and its properties in the Rule Property Editor.
  4. Edit and save the rule in the Rule Editor (see Create a Rule) or the rule properties in the Rule Property Editor (see Rule Properties).
  5. Check the file back in (see Check Out and Check In).

Use Rule Solutions for Office to Open RuleDocs

To open and save a RuleDoc if you are using ILOG Rule Solutions for Office to edit your rules (see section Work Offline if you want to work offline):

  1. Locate the RuleDoc in the rule document library and check the file out (see Check Out and Check In).
  2. Click Edit in Microsoft Office Word or Edit in Microsoft Office Excel in the drop-down menu to the right of the RuleDoc name in the rule document library.
    3. ILOG Rule Solutions for Office opens in its own window displaying the RuleDoc you have selected.
  3. Edit the rule or the rule properties.
  4. Save the RuleDoc and check the file back in (see Check Out and Check In).

Migrate RuleDocs created with an earlier version of Rule Team Server or Rule Solutions for Office

This version of Rule Team Server does not allow you to work directly on RuleDocs that were created with previous versions of Rule Team Server or Rule Solutions for Office.

If you open an old RuleDoc, all rule authoring capabilities will be disabled. In order to convert your old RuleDocs to the new format, you must regenerate them from Rule Studio.

For a detailed description of this process, consult the ILOG Rule Studio .NET documentation.

Delete a RuleDoc or Rule Document Library

You may want to periodically clean up your Rule Team Server environment by deleting some RuleDocs or rule document libraries.

Note
Deleting a rule or decision table from an existing RuleDoc is described in section Delete a Rule.

To Delete a RuleDoc or folder
  1. Click Delete in the drop-down menu to the right of the RuleDoc or the folder name in the rule document library.
  2. Click OK to confirm.
    Warning
    Deleting a RuleDoc permanently deletes the file and its contents, as well as its history from Rule Team Server. Once you delete a RuleDoc you will not be able to retrieve it.
To Delete a rule document library
  1. On the home page, click Documents in the left toolbar.
  2. On the Documents and Lists page, click the rule document library in the Document Libraries section.
  3. In the rule document library toolbar, click Settings > Document Library Settings.
  4. Under Permissions and Management, click Delete this document library.
  5. Click OK to confirm.

Upload a RuleDoc

You can upload a RuleDoc from your disk to a rule document library. Once you do so, any modifications to the file on your disk or network will not affect the uploaded document.

To upload a RuleDoc from your disk or network:
  1. Click Upload in the rule document library toolbar.
  2. Click Browse to find the RuleDoc you want to insert.
  3. Once you have selected the file, click OK.

Create a New Folder

You can create a new folder in an existing rule document library to organize your RuleDocs.

To create a new folder:
  1. In the rule document library toolbar, click New > New Folder.
  2. Enter an appropriate name in the Name field.
  3. Click OK.

Copy and Rename a RuleDoc

You cannot create a new RuleDoc, but you can copy an existing one and rename it.

If you do so, you MUST delete all the rules, decision tables and ruleflows from the copied RuleDoc afterwards. Simply renaming the individual rules, decision tables or ruleflows will not be sufficient, as the RuleDocs assign specific identifiers to each item they contain.

Note
The best practice is to place all the rules belonging to a package inside a RuleDoc bearing the same name.

To copy an existing RuleDoc
  1. On the home page, click Documents in the left toolbar, and then click your rule document library in the Document Libraries section.
  2. Click Explorer View in the View part.
  3. Right-click the RuleDoc you want to copy, and then click Copy from the drop-down contextual menu.
  4. Navigate to the folder where you want to copy the RuleDoc (this can be the current folder), right-click anywhere inside the working part of the Explorer view, and click Paste from the drop-down contextual menu.
  5. Click All Documents to return to the usual view.

Alternatively, you can click on the icon to the left of the RuleDoc name in the rule document library and save it to your disk. You can then rename the file and upload it back to Rule Team Server (Upload a RuleDoc).

To rename a RuleDoc
  1. Click Edit Properties from the drop-down list to the right of the RuleDoc name.
  2. Enter the new name in the Name field.
  3. Click OK.

Check Out and Check In

An important aspect of working collaboratively with RuleDocs is checking out and checking in the files when using them.

Checking out a RuleDoc ensures that others cannot make changes to the document while you are editing it. Other users will not see your changes until you check the file back in.

Furthermore, if you do not check out a RuleDoc, you will be able to view the rules but not to modify them, since the corresponding toolbars will be disabled.

Note
Do not leave RuleDocs checked out once you finish working on them, as a checked-out RuleDoc cannot be synchronized with Rule Studio for .NET.

Synchronizing RuleDocs Between Rule Team Server and Rule Studio

When you work in a collaborative environment, it is important for everyone to have access to the latest information at all times.

In the case of ILOG Rule Team Server for SharePoint and ILOG Rule Studio for .NET, this involves ensuring that any changes developers make to the rule artifacts and rule projects that make up your RuleDocs are carried over into the files you can access from Rule Team Server, while at the same time ensuring that developers have access to any updates you or your colleagues may make to these files from within Rule Team Server. The process through which this is achieved is known as synchronization.

The synchronization mechanism has two main phases:

The synchronization mechanism takes this developer-centric view because the specific actions that need to be carried out are always performed in Rule Studio. It is the developer who either pushes changes out from Rule Studio to Rule Team Server or pulls them in from Rule Team Server to Rule Studio.

As a user of Rule Team Server, your part in the process is to remember always to check in any files you have worked on once you have finished.

For further details of how the synchronization mechanism operates, consult the documentation for ILOG Rule Studio for .NET.

Check Out

To check out a RuleDoc, click Check Out in the drop-down menu to the right of the RuleDoc name. Once your RuleDoc is checked out, you can safely perform edits on it.

When you check out a document, other users cannot edit the document or see your changes to the document. If you later decide to check in the document without saving your changes, you can use the Discard check out option on the Check In page. You lose any changes made while you checked out the document. The document reverts to the last checked-in version, and no version history is kept for the unsaved changes.

Note
Do not leave RuleDocs checked out once you finish working on them, as a checked-out RuleDoc cannot be synchronized with Rule Studio for .NET.

Check In

When you check in a document, other users who can access the document library can see and edit the updated document.

To check in a RuleDoc once you have modified it:
  1. Click Check In in the drop-down menu to the right of the RuleDoc name.
  2. Decide whether you want to keep the document checked out after checking in this version and select the relevant option, Yes or No.
  3. Type in a comment in the Comments section to describe the edits you made.
  4. Click OK.

Note
Members of the Administrator and Web Designer site groups can override a document check out if necessary, and force the document to be checked in with the previous version. Contact the Administrator of Rule Team Server if you need to do this.

Version RuleDocs

An important aspect of working collaboratively with RuleDocs is versioning, which lets you keep all the previous versions of the document.

If a change needs to be reversed, you can restore the previous version and continue working. You can open an old version, restore a version (replacing the current version), or delete an old version.

Rule Team Server will store a new version of your RuleDocs each time it is informed of changes to them, that is:

You can identify a version of a RuleDoc by the date and time at which it was saved, as well as the comment you enter when you check it in.

To restore a previous version of a RuleDoc:
  1. In the rule document library, click Version History in the drop-down list to the right of the RuleDoc name.
  2. Locate the version of the RuleDoc you want to restore and click Restore in the drop-down list to the right of its date and time column.
  3. Click OK to confirm.
    4. The version of the RuleDoc that is accessible in the rule document library is now the one that you have restored.

Alerts

Alerts enable you to be notified by e-mail of any changes made to a RuleDoc. You can specify how frequently you want to receive alert messages: immediately or as daily or weekly summaries. You can delete your alerts at any time.

To be alerted of changes to a RuleDoc, select Alert me from the drop-down list to the right of the RuleDoc name. Then, enter the e-mail address where you want the alert messages to be sent, as well as set the frequency options. You will receive a confirmation message at the specified e-mail address.

In this confirmation message you will find a link to the page that displays the status of your alerts. From there you can cancel any alert messages that you have set.

User Presence

User presence is indicated everywhere a member name appears in a site. User presence lets you do instant messaging with others when collaborating on your rules, and offers information such as free/busy status, office location, and manager.

Discussion Boards

Discussion boards provide a forum for conversing about topics that interest your team. Team members can post comments and reply to other's comments, reducing the need for widely distributed e-mail threads.

Work Offline

It is possible to display and edit your RuleDocs even if you are not connected to Rule Team Server, if you have ILOG Rule Solutions for Office installed on your system. This is referred to as working offline.

Working on your RuleDocs offline is an excellent alternative in many usage scenarios. However, it must be clear to all the participants that the rules created or modified offline cannot be tested and deployed to the end-user computer applications until the RuleDoc is saved to the rule repository, that is, Rule Team Server.

There are two main usage scenarios for working offline:

In both scenarios, working offline begins with someone checking the RuleDoc out from Rule Team Server and ends with someone checking it back in. This is the only way for your RuleDocs to be managed correctly with version control.

In scenario 2, it is possible for the RuleDoc to change hands more than once before being checked back in by someone who has access to Rule Team Server. In this case, you will need to implement a good change tracking strategy, as described in the Rule Solutions for Office online help, since offline users will not be able to access the versioning services of Rule Team Server.

To edit your RuleDocs offline in the ILOG Rule Solutions for Office environment:

  1. Locate the RuleDoc and check the file out (see Check Out and Check In).
  2. Click Save in the drop-down menu to the right of the RuleDoc name in the rule document library (you can also just click the icon and select Save), and save the RuleDoc to your disk or network location.
  3. Once you are no longer connected to Rule Team Server, open your RuleDoc with ILOG Rule Solutions for Office, edit your rules, and save from Word or Excel to your disk or network location.
  4. When you connect back to Rule Team Server, upload your modified RuleDoc to the rule document library as indicated in Upload a RuleDoc.
  5. Check the file back in (see Check Out and Check In).
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